Curbs Ahead for Online Pharmacies

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Curbs Ahead for Online Pharmacies

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – It's been a drawn-out process, but authorities here are preparing to restrict supplies of drugs from online pharmacies.

A heady cocktail has stirred up the online market for pharmaceutical drugs in New Zealand. Pharmaceutical drug prices here are relatively low because of a relatively weak New Zealand dollar. And a New Zealand court established in late 1999 that, as the law stands, New Zealand pharmacists can legally export medicines without a prescription.

This week, the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is launching a system of official accreditation to give a seal of approval to online pharmacies that conform to the society's guidelines.

The move comes after New Zealand's Ministry of Health seized six bags of mail last November that contained various prescription medicines such as Viagra, Xenical, and Propecia destined for what appeared to be, court documents said, private addresses in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Ministry of Health argued that this was against the country's Medicines Act, which requires a doctor's prescription for any medicines that cannot be purchased over the counter.

But an Auckland pharmacist and the exporter of those medicines, Kerry Bell, successfully argued in the following court action that the law did not require a pharmacist to have proof of a prescription before export. The court ordered the Ministry of Health to return the medicines it had seized from Bell.

Now the Pharmaceutical Society is imposing discipline charges against Bell, according to Euan Galloway, who oversees pharmacists' practices for the organization.

Under the Pharmacy Act, pharmacists who breach the society's code of ethics can be fined up to $10,000 (about US$4,000) and can lose their licenses to practice.

But the Pharmaceutical Society says a change in the law is sorely needed. "It's the legislation that will put the grout in the dyke," Galloway said.

The government does plan to close the loophole that now allows pharmacists to export medicines without a prescription. The Ministry says the part of the law that Bell relied on was probably meant for the wholesale export of medicines to countries in need of medical aid.

The new regulation, a Ministry discussion paper says, would remove the existing legal anomaly and require "New Zealand pharmacists (and anyone else) to require a prescription in all cases."

According to the Ministry of Health's Selina Gentry, the new regulation should have governmental approval by October.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't waited for New Zealand's regulatory regime to change; earlier this year it sent warning letters to three online pharmacies based in New Zealand.

The pharmacists were told that the Internet sales could be illegal, and that any packages sold via their sites could be stopped at the border. "What we have done is to ask the U.S. Customs Service to detain packages for FDA inspection," says Thomas McGinnis, director of pharmacy affairs in the Office of Policy at the FDA.

The Customs Service would not comment on whether any such packages had been stopped since the letters went out.

New Zealand pharmacist Debbie Young, one of the recipients of an FDA letter, says she stopped selling Codcomol, the medicine her FDA letter complained about, as soon as she got the letter.

She says she agrees that selling prescription-only medicines without prescriptions is dangerous. But via her website, she does offer medicines that in New Zealand can be sold legally by pharmacists without prescriptions. The U.S. equivalents might require doctors' visits and prescriptions.

"This is a huge business," Young said. And exports are not just to the United States. Customers log into New Zealand's online pharmacies from around the globe. "The truth of it is the Americans are paying way over the odds for their drugs."

Patrick Pilcher, research manager for e-commerce analyst IDC New Zealand, sees the trend in online pharmacies as inexorable and local legislation as relatively futile.

"You may plug one leak, but 50 more will spring up," he said, adding that a global solution is the only way to tackle any problem. "I do believe that international treaties will be formed to cope with these things."

Done right, digital pharmacology could offer more choice, being a boon for the likes of isolated rural communities, Pilcher said.

But the Pharmaceutical Society's Galloway warns that medicines must be treated as a special category in the e-commerce world.

"It's not like being able to read and discard a book (bought over the Internet)," he said. "If you get the wrong drug, then it can have dire consequences for you."